Who has the vanity to call you friend, 295 Yet wants the honour, injur'd, to defend ; Make Satire a Lampoon, and Fiction Lye. Let Sporus tremble ---A.What? that thing of filk, NOTES. VER. 295. Who has the vanity to call you friend, Yet wants the honour, injur'd, to defend ;] When a great Genius, whofe writings have afforded the world much pleasure and inftruction, happens to be enviously attacked, or falfly accufed, it is natural to think, that a fenfe of gratitude for fo agreeable an obligation, or a sense of that honour refulting to our Country from fuch a Writer, should raife amongst thofe who call themselves his friends, a pretty general indignation. But every day's experience fhews us the very contrary. Some take a malignant fatisfaction in the attack; others a foolish pleasure in a literary conflict; and the far greater part look on with a felfifh indif ference. VER. 299. Who to the Dean, and filver bell &c.] Meaning the man who would have perfuaded the Duke of Chandos that Mr. P. meant him in those circumstances ridiculed in the Epiftle on Tafe. See Mr. Pope's Letter to the Earl of Burlington concerning this matter. P. Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings, In mumbling of the game they dare not bite. And, as the prompter breathes, the puppet squeaks; Or at the ear of Eve, familiar Toad, Half froth, half venom, spits himself abroad, 320 Or fpite, or smut, or rhymes, or blafphemies. NOTES. VER. 319. See Milton, Book iv. 325 P. VER. 320. Half froth,] Alluding to those frothy excretions, called by the people, Toad-fpits, feen in fummer time hanging upon plants, and emitted by young infects which lie hid in the midft of them, for their prefervation, while in their helpless ftate. Fop at the toilet, flatt'rer at the board, Now trips a Lady, and now ftruts a Lord. 335 Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will trust, NOTES. VER. 340. That not in Fancy's maze he wander'd long,] His merit in this will appear very great, if we confider, that in this walk he had all the advantages which the most poetic Imagination could give to a great Genius. M.Voltaire, in a MS. letter now before me, writes thus from England to a friend in Paris. "I intend to fend you two or three poems of Mr. Pope, the "best poet of England, and at prefent of all the world. I hope you are acquainted enough with the English tongue, to be "fenfible of all the charms of his works. For my part, I look "upon his poem called the Effay on Criticifm as fuperior to "the Art of poetry of Horace; and his Rape of the Lock is, in my opinion, above the Lutrin of Defpreaux. I never faw "fo amiable an imagination, fo gentle graces, fo great variety, "fo much wit, and fo refined knowledge of the world, as in this little performance." MS. Let. Oct. 15, 1726. VER. 341. But flocp'd to Truth, and moraliz'd his fong :] This 345 That not for Fame, but Virtue's better end, NOTES. may be faid no lefs in commendation of his literary, than of his moral character. And his fuperior excellence in poetry is owing to it. He foon difcovered in what his force lay; and he made the best of that advantage, by a fedulous cultivation of his proper talent. For having read Quintilian early, this precept did not escape him, Sunt hæc duo vitanda prorfus: unum ne tentes quod effici non poffit; alterum, ne ab eo, quod quis optime facit, in aliud, cui minus eft idoneus, transferas. It was in this knowledge and cultivation of his genius that he had principally the advantage of his great mafter, Dryden; who, by his MacFlecno, his Abfolom and Achitophel, but chiefly by his Prologues and Epilogues, appears to have had great talents for this Ipecies of moral poetry; but, unluckily, he feem'd neither to understand nor attend to it. Ibid. But ftoop'd to Truth] The term is from falconry; and the allufion to one of those untamed birds of spirit, which fometimes wantons at large in airy circles before it regards, or floops to, its prey. VER. 350. the lye fo oft o'erthrown] As, that he received fubfcriptions for Shakespear, that he fet his name to Mr. Broome's verfes, &c. which, tho' publicly difproved, were nevertheis fhamelessly repeated in the Libels, and even in that called the Nobleman's Epiftle. P. The morals blacken'd when the writings 'scape, The libel'd person, and the pictur'd shape; 355 The whisper, that to greatness ftill too near, NOTES. VER. 351. Th' imputed trash] Such as profane Pfalms, Court-Poems, and other scandalous things, printed in his Name by Curl and others. P. VER. 354, Abufe, on all be lov'd, ar lov'd him, fpread.] Namely on the Duke of Buckingham, the Earl of Burlington, Lord Bathurst, Lord Bolingbroke, Bishop Atterbury, Dr. Swift, Dr. Arbuthnot, Mr. Gay, his Friends, his Parents, and his very Nurfe, afperfed in printed papers, by James Moore, G. Ducket, L. Welfted, Tho. Bentley, and other obfcure perfons. P. VER. 356. The whisper, that to greatness fill too near,] By the whisper is meant calumniating honeft Characters. Shakefpear has finely expreffed this office of the fycophant of greatnefs in the following line: Rain facrificial whisperings in his ear. By which is meant the immolating mens reputations to the vice or vanity of his Patron, VER. 357. Perhaps, yet vibrates] What force and elegance. of expreffion! which, in one word, conveys to us the phyfical effects of found, and the moral effects of an often repeated fcandal. VER. 359. For thee, fair Virtue! welcome evn the last!] This line is remarkable for presenting us with the most amiable image of fteddy Virtue, mixed with a modeft concern for his |